


I Wasn't Expecting That

by araliya



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 22:06:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12897816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araliya/pseuds/araliya
Summary: Darren and Chris have finally done something about all those photos on Darren's phone.





	I Wasn't Expecting That

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from tumblr: Prompt based on the song Wasn't Expecting That by Jamie Lawson, please?
> 
> All lyrics by Jamie Lawson. 
> 
> Tell me what you think!

Listen to the song [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-lI_tgQMMk)

 

 _(Oh and isn't it strange_   
_How a life can be changed)_   


Darren wakes up cold. The sheets, which had previously been tangled around his ankles, have fallen to the floor in a heap, and Chris sleeps naked next to him, pale skin glowing in the half-light. Goosebumps have erupted all over his skin, and Darren slowly reaches down to grab the duvet, quietly so as not to wake him.

 

He spreads it over the both of them, pressing a soft kiss beside Chris’ eye as he does so, but when Darren lies back to fall asleep, he finds that he can’t. It takes half an hour of frustratedly squeezing his eyes shut and _willing_ sleep to come, but eventually he realises it won’t happen any time soon. He makes to get out of bed- maybe he can get some work done- but the book on the nightstand catches his eye.

 

It’s a photo album that he and Chris had been working on the night before, having gotten the multitudes of photos cluttering up his phone finally developed. Darren sets it in his lap, back against the headboard, and traces the stitching across the front- a celtic love knot.

 

The book has that new leather smell, and the pages are still stiff with disuse. Developed photos have been placed on each page, shiny and reflective. They range from posed shots to scenery to candids, all taken with his shaky, terribly unskilled hand.

 

There’s something that makes photographs so special to Darren. They’re flashes through a lifetime- the people and emotions in the picture immortalised. Darren’s got a fear- a rather irrational one according to Chris- that one day he’ll forget all of his memories. That he’ll have experienced and witnessed so much, but he’ll never be able to recollect them, all of it going to waste.

 

It’s why books and movies such as _50 First Dates_ freak Darren out so much. What if he develops some type of amnesia or Alzheimer’s or something, and forgets the music, his friends, his family, _Chris_? It’s what he’d explained to Chris the first time Darren had taken a photo of him, after Chris had tried to make him delete it.

 

_(It was only a smile_

_But my heart it went wild)_

 

That photo’s there on the first page. Chris is sitting in his post-rehearsal ratty t-shirt and jeans, slumped in a deck chair, laughing at something someone’s said. His cheeks are reddened and still a little round, eyes dancing with humour. The shutter noise had given Darren away at the time and Chris had been mortified, complaining that he didn’t look good when he laughed.

 

Darren must’ve looked at that photo a hundred times that night, in the loneliness of his own apartment. He remembers wanting to tell Chris _no, please don’t put yourself down- you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life_ , but he hadn’t.

 

He thinks now of what would’ve happened. Chris would’ve blushed, rosy and perfect, and batted Darren’s compliment away with another self-deprecating remark.

 

Should he tell Chris that now, the reaction would still be about the same, maybe coupled with a fond eye roll. Darren would tackle him to the ground, pepper him with wet kisses, and not let him up until Chris admitted that he loved him.

 

 _(Just a delicate kiss_   
_Anyone could've missed)_   


A photo several pages along catches Darren’s attention. It’s from the tour, blurry in the dark lighting of the club they were in. It’s him and Chris curled up in a chaise, strobe lights dancing around them. He can’t remember who took it, only that Chris had felt so warm and _real_ beside him.

 

They’d stared at the photo after they’d had gotten his phone back, and when Darren had looked up, he’d felt Chris’ lips on his, soft and gentle and fleeting. He remembers the room contracting down to just Chris, devoid of the inebriated bodies and pulsing music around them. He remembers stumbling out onto the balcony with him. He remembers kissing him again and again and again.

 

 _(But it came without fear_ _  
_ _A month turned into a year)_

 

Chris had been hesitant at first. He’d always made a point of never mixing his personal life with his work life and here he was doing just that. Darren had been prepared to wait. It’s this, he thinks, that led Chris to understand just how serious he was about them, even at the beginning.

 

There’s a picture from their first anniversary, a dozen pages along. It’s one of the few there are of just Darren, and no one else. He’s wearing a t-shirt with Paul McCartney and the words “Daddy” underneath (Chris’ first gift) and he holds a guitar, a ring on his right hand on display (Chris’ second gift).

 

Darren’s present to him had been a song, shakily strummed out until the words jammed in his throat. Chris had kissed him with searing heat, and they’d gone from crying to laughing to being tangled in a heap on the floor, sweaty and sated.

 

 _(If I ever get the nerve to ask_ _  
_ _What did I get right to deserve somebody like you?)_

 

Three photos among hundreds, all packed into one unsuspecting book. There are plenty more empty pages, ready to be filled with more, the already printed ones in a neat stack on their dining table.

 

Darren shuts the book, muffling the quiet _thump_ by doing it exaggeratedly slowly. Apparently there’s no point, because when he turns to look at Chris, there’s already a pair of blue eyes staring back at him. Chris is on his side, face pillowed by his palm, smiling softly.

 

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, reaching out to play with Darren’s fingers, still resting atop the album.

 

“Yeah,” Darren admits. He takes in Chris’ appearance, all soft around the edges like he gets when he’s truly comfortable. “Have I ever told you that I love you?”

 

“Not in the past couple of hours, no.”

 

“Well, I do.”

 

“I love you too, you idiot,” Chris teases, sitting up and stretching like a cat. The clock reads _06:29_. “We’ve got a couple of hours before call time. Wanna go work on that some more?”

 

Darren grins and grabs Chris’ outstretched hand.

 

 _(If you'd not took a chance_   
_On a little romance)_   


_(I wasn't expecting that)_   


  


  
  
  
  
  
  


  



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